i moved to new york city on august 2nd, 2009. i used to bartend 3-4 nights and nanny four days each week, and this site chronicled those stories. i now bartend 2 nights, teach chess lessons to children most afternoons, and try to be a good neighbor. this site now chronicles my new life and my journey toward full-time mission work. have a drink. kiss a baby. send me financial support? follow the life and times of the bartending nanny. play like a champion today.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
is bartending fun? it seems fun!
this is the work-related question i get more often than any. well, that’s not entirely true. if we’re counting all of my jobs, “how’s the bronx?” gets more play than anything. it’s funny. in the moment, i feel better prepared to answer the former than the latter.
it makes sense, and says more about me than either occupation, i think. (ugh. using that word, occupation, about the bronx doesn’t taste right in my mouth.) i’ve been a bartender for more than 13 years now, and i haven’t lived in the bronx for even 13 months yet, so i should logically know more about the former question. i guess i wish i didn’t.
so is it fun? sure, it is. it used to be fun because i didn’t do much more than pour drafts, pop bottle tops and break up fights, making a lot more money than i deserved. then it was fun because i could drink a bunch for free, learned a high tolerance for alcohol and found plenty of pretty girls willing to talk to me if i gave them a free shot. nowadays it’s fun because i know how to craft a good drink. i’ve become a liquid chef of sorts, infusing and implementing ingredients that not everyone would think of into cocktails that folks want to drink, and often in second and third helpings. it didn’t used to matter to me if folks enjoyed my recipes and improvised creations. now it matters. it matters to me very much.
as fun as that is, it’s still not my answer to the former question. the answer is that it’s fun to connect to someone. it’s fun to ask if someone lives or works in the neighborhood. it’s fun to be consistently in front of your guests and customers, aware of their needs and wants while having all your tools and equipment less than 6 feet away from your outstretched fingertips. it’s fun to listen. it’s fun to shut up. most bar patrons want someone to shut up and listen, and that’s a fun game that i’ve learned to win more often than lose.
in the interest of honesty, it is still fun to flip a bottle and hear someone call you tom cruise. that’ll probably never change. believe me, if it happened to you, you’d feel the same.
good night, you guys. thanks for following and reading.
